Nadene Goldfoot
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| Moses with Ten Commandments |
Moses decided to take the Jewish people out of Egypt and back to the Promised Land of Canaan. He not only received Ten Commandments for us to live by but 613 more. This created a society that was probably the most advanced in the world, showing a reverence of all life, including animal’s feelings of all sorts. Female babies were not killed. No human was sacrificed. This all happened at least 3,000 years ago. There was no other group of people that were so sensitive to living creatures or were so much in the here and now of the living and not the deceased.
We lost our civilization in 70CE when the Romans conquered Jerusalem. We had been carried off as slaves before this several times. Again our people were either killed or carried off as slaves. Yet some were able to hide in the small kingdoms of either Judah or Israel.
The Jewish survivors adjusted their thinking to fit the circumstances they found themselves in. Their prayers included returning to Jerusalem or losing their right hands as a reminder of its importance. During this time they found they had to live by their wits, not being allowed to own land in other’s countries where they were expelled to or taken. They already were a group who valued the art of reading and writing and found that trading was a skill they were good at. They kept to themselves, thereby preserving their inheritance of values and ideals.
After living in Italy, Germany, England and other places, they continued to be successful but lived according to their own values on foreign soil. This would cause jealousy and antagonism with the populace, causing them to be driven out. In the late 1800's several groups finally moved back to what was now called Palestine to live and prosper. By 1894 a reporter named Hertzl realized that anti-Semitism was on the rise again and looked for a solution. Not being a religious man, he thought of Africa as a home for the Jews. Then he realized that not once had their prayers strayed from the promise to remember Jerusalem and to return to her. "Palestine," that hot wasteland, was the only place that Jews could possibly return.to and strive to rebuild.
Then the 2nd world war happened, being declared December 7, 1941 in the USA. Six million Jews who lived in Europe were slaughtered. Many survivors made their way to Palestine because other nations still had rules barring Jews from entering. A deal had been made with the English, who were responsible for the land at that time to allow Jews to have their own homeland back. After being pressured by some Arab heads, they reneged on their promise with proclaiming their "White Paper", which barred Jews from entering this barren unclaimed parcel of land. However, by 1948, Israel managed to be born.
For two thousand years Jews have tried to live in other people’s countries. They have led the way in many areas of business, medicine and science. Knowledge and education have been the driving force in their families. Knowing that six million of their people were murdered for no reason other than being Jewish has been the driving force to have their own country once again. It has not been an easy road since all the surrounding countries attacked once the birth of Israel was announced. These are countries with more square miles than USA is made of, attacking the state of Israel which is one third as big as Oregon. At this writing only two of the countries have made some sort of peace with Israel; Egypt and Jordan. Lebanon is still trying to get on its feet and fighting there is very close to Israel. Israel is only 59 years old in this second birth and has had to fight in about seven wars. It took the Jews a long time to throw in the towel and return to their own land, and perhaps it will take us another two thousand years until our neighbors realize that we’re there for good and quit fighting us. For here we must stay. There is no other way. No, we never did forget Jerusalem.
